How to Do Business With Family
Date Posted: December 8th, 2010
Let’s say you’re in one of the following situations:
- Your kid takes violin lessons from your sister, a professional violin teacher.
- Your Mom babysits your kids a few days a week.
- Your brother is living in the spare room of your house.
- Your best friend, a professional mechanic, fixes your car when it breaks down.
Should you exchange money for these services? If you were dealing with strangers then the answer would be simple: yes, you should exchange money. But this is family, and money and family is a volatile combination. What should you do?
The answer is… it depends. Your sister, the violin teacher, could expect you to pay her (since it’s… you know.. her job!) or she could be insulted that you’re trying to pay her to spend time with her niece and nephew. There’s no way to know unless you talk to her about it.
If you’re in this situation, you might be tempted to take an educated guess based on what you know about your sister, but I highly recommend you don’t do that. There are a lot social expectations here.
For instance, she may actually want to be paid, but if you don’t pay her she probably won’t argue with you since social norms say siblings shouldn’t pay each other for services. She could start feeling resentful because she doesn’t want to work for free, and then start feeling guilty that she feels resentful… and it’s a vicious cycle and she probably won’t bring it up to you.
Or it could be the other way around. It’s possible that even though she doesn’t feel like she needs to paid, she’s afraid to tell you to stop paying her since it might hurt your pride… or something. Awkward.
The point is if you guess wrong, the situation won’t resolve itself. The longer you let the problem fester the worse it gets, and in the end it can only be solved with an open, honest conversation about what each person wants. You might as well have that conversation in the beginning. It’ll be easier that way. And don’t wait for them to initiate the conversation. Most people won’t do it.
Talking to the Giver
If you’re the one receiving a service from a friend or family member, and you think you need to have a conversation with them about payment, you can easily make the conversation go well. Just, have the giver decide whether or not to be paid and assure the giver that neither answer will negatively affect the relationship. Doing that empowers the giver, which is a good thing.
Of course you need to actually show that you’re OK with either answer. Don’t be pissy if your sister says she wants to be paid for the violin lessons she’s giving your kids. Be gracious and agree to pay her. If you don’t have the money to pay her, be honest about it and ask her for suggestions on how to solve the problem. Then go do something fun together.
There’s a chance that your sister may be insulted for being asked if she wants to be paid. If that’s the case, assure her that you’re only trying to pay her for the value she’s providing. It’s a compliment, not an insult. Both sides look good this way.
Talking to the Receiver
If you’re the one giving services and you’re feeling resentful because you aren’t being paid by your friend or family member, you’re in a tough place. The conversation you have with the receiver more than likely won’t go well because nobody likes being told their free ride is over.
Before you start creating drama, figure out what category you’re in:
- You need the money
- You simply want to be paid for the work you do
- You feel like there’s something lacking in the relationship
If there’s something lacking in the relationship, asking them outright to be paid could cause more problems than it solves. It says, “you don’t feel like family to me anymore so you should pay me like the other strangers I work with do.” Assuming they do start paying you, every time money changes hands it will reinforce your estrangement. Not good. (Unless you really do want to poison the relationship. If that’s the case, by all means…)
Instead, ignore the money issue and focus on healing the relationship since that’s where the problem is. What would need to happen in order for you to feel OK with the idea of serving your family member for free? How can you make that happen? Work to make it happen.
Even if you’re the kind of person who always wants to be paid for your services, if you feel your relationship with your friend or family member is broken, you should focus on fixing the relationship before you go about asking to get paid. Once the relationship is healed, money can change hands without problems. Yes, it’ll take longer, but better that than making the relationship worse. Alternately you could stop providing your service to them until the relationship is healed.
If the relationship is healthy, but you need the money or simply want to be paid for your services, try having a frank conversation with your friend or family member about it. Be humble. Be honest. Be gentle. If they’re sane you should eventually be able to come to some kind of agreement. If the conversation ends badly, and you feel you were misunderstood, find someone both of your respect to talk to them about it. There’s nothing wrong with being paid for your services, even if it’s family doing the paying.
Doing business with family is trickier than doing it with strangers because of all the unwritten social rules, but it’s not impossible.
I’ll try to have some post ready for that Friday. It won’t be a check-in because… I won’t be there for the checking in. But it’ll be something. 
